Thursday, November 18, 2010

The Moppets Take Manhattan

Yesterday we skipped school and hit New York! (Here's Mo, Magoo & Curly in Times Square.)

But before that happened, we rode in the car for three hours. (More on that tomorrow.) And we had a subway ride into the heart of the city. Oh - the boys enjoyed that. Moreso than some of the other people. (Check out the lady in the background. I used my special thought-reading lens.)

We had about a hour once we got to the theater so we took the boys into Times Square to walk around a bit and lo and behold there's a HUGE Toys R Us! Naturally, we went inside. There's a freakin' ferris wheel in there! Mo, Magoo, and I rode in the Monopoly car while Heather and Curly rode in the Nickelodeon car. I think the boys were happy they didn't get the My Pretty Pony car! But the waiting in line, loading and unloading, all took some time so we have to hustle back over to the theater and get in our seats for the boys' first Broadway show - Mary Poppins!!!

Now, I want to take a moment to say that I've been to plenty of plays in my time and they don't all need to be huge productions to be great. One of the best plays I've ever seen, called Stones in His Pockets, was nothing more than two men on a blank stage in a small theater. It was awesome. But sometimes a lesser theater produces a lesser show. We recently took the boys to see Charlie and the Chocolate Factory - performed by a local theater company - and it was all fine and good but the set changes were performed by an old guy in black clothing pushing a piece of wood around. It was a little lower scale than I was anticipating. However, when you go to a Broadway show - the one thing I think you can almost guarantee is fantastic stage craft. And OH MY DOGGIE - we got a heaping helping of that.

For one thing, there was a whole house on stage! (This pic is from the internet.)

Then when it was time for a new scene, the whole house moved back and the nursery dropped down from the top of the stage. Mary Poppins flew! Burt, the chimney sweep, danced on the ceiling! The kitchen was destroyed and then magically reassembled! It was all very cool.

It was colorful, lively, and energetic! The below shot (from the internet) is from Supercalifragilisticxmealidocious (which I'm sure isn't spelled right.)

It was a long show at the end of a long day and Magoo was certainly a little jittery in his seat by curtain call. But I think all the boys were impressed and have a memory that they won't soon forget.

On our way out we went through Times Square again and Magoo posed in front of the lights.